Onscreen television programming guides commonly referred to as electronic programming guides (EPGs) provide a user with the ability to create a search of available television programs that presents a specified subset of the available programs. The search may return available programs in a specified area of interest (e.g., comedies), or may return programs available from a specified broadcast station or programs available at a specified time, for example.
FIG. 1 illustrates aspects of an EPG display in accordance with the prior art. EPG display 100 includes a search criteria window 120. EPG display 101 includes a search result window 130. Typically, a user will enter search criteria on one display (e.g., EPG display 100), and view the search results on a following display (e.g., EPG display 101).
For example, as shown in EPG display 100, the search criterion “Children” has been selected from the search criteria window 120. The EPG search is conducted based upon the specified criteria, and the result is displayed on a subsequent EPG display. For example, search result window 130 displays the station number and title of all children programs available. The user may then select a desired program. Typically, up and down arrows 131 and 132 are used to move a selection marker, such as a pointer or highlight, in the channel or programming selection domain.
The prior EPG presents the drawback in that if a user desires to change or refine the search criteria, the user must return to a previous screen and reset the search criteria. The new search is then conducted against the entire set of available programs. Another drawback is that present EPGs do not allow a search based upon the combination of multiple search criteria.
A further convention, typically maintained in prior art EPGs is that entering numbers from a TV remote control device causes the selection marker to jump to the TV channel whose number corresponds to the number entered on the remote control device.
However, if a search is refined, the number of presented items is already limited, so being able to enter a channel number to navigate to a selection does not present any advantage. Furthermore, a specific channel may or may not be represented in a specific search result, so jumping to a channel number entered by the user may not lead to an item in the search result, and hence may be counterproductive in the search.